US Republicans elected their party’s first-ever African-American leader on Friday, throwing down the gauntlet to rival Democrats after bitter losses in November when President Barack Obama became the first black person to win the White House.
After being voted in as chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), rising political star Michael Steele vowed to revitalize conservatives in a party he and others acknowledge needs a makeover to regain some of its lost political stature.
“We’re going to bring this party to every corner, every boardroom, every neighborhood, every community,” he said after his victory over several other Republican insiders.
“We’re going to say to friend and foe alike we want you to be a part of us, we want you to work with us. And for those of you who wish to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over,” Steele, 50, said after six ballots to choose the new RNC chairman.
On a day of high political drama, the former lieutenant governor of the state of Maryland and candidate for US Senate in 2006 defeated several powerful GOP insiders, including South Carolina party chairman Katon Dawson in the final ballot. Steele won by a vote of 91 to 77, with 85 votes needed to win.
He is tasked with rejuvenating — and diversifying — a party that is overwhelmingly white, and which was left licking its wounds after losing the presidency in November and seeing Democrats solidify their grip on both houses of Congress.
“I look forward to visiting all of you in your neighborhoods, in your backyards as we grow and build the Republican Party of this country,” he said.
Steele’s victory puts minority African-Americans at the pinnacle of the country’s two major parties, capping a remarkable year of ascendancy for blacks in US politics.
Obama’s win is all the more startling given the toxic atmosphere throughout stretches of the presidential campaign last year, when Republicans were accused of not-so-subtly injecting race into the campaign.
But with the drubbing they received in November, Republican leaders have acknowledged that their party suffers from an image problem.
“My concern is unless we do something to adapt, our status as a minority party may become too pronounced for an easy recovery,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said.
In a statement released after the vote, the RNC said Steele was a “self-described Lincoln Republican,” referring to Civil War-era US president Abraham Lincoln whom Obama counts as his own political hero.
Steele’s counterpart Tim Kaine, the Democratic National Committee chairman, congratulated Steele and hoped he could work with him to “put partisanship and the politics of the past aside to get our economy working again.
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